Prefs, Sound, Defult, doesn't 'work'

[Carl Karsten]

I have 2 sound cards:

carl at amd15:~$ lspci|grep audio
0000:00:0c.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq ES1371 [AudioPCI-97] (rev 02)
0000:00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc.
VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 30)

one is not working right (I get weird echos- see
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1250653#post1250653 )

So I want to use the other.  so I hit System, Preferences, Sound, change
"Default sound card" from "VIA 8223" to "Ensoniq AudioPCI", hit "Close".

and now for the bug:
System, Preferences, Sound,  "Default sound card" is still "VIA 8223"

I am pretty sure it isn't setting it (as oposed to not showing the current
setting) because this still plays to the

carl at amd15:~$ play /usr/share/hwdb-client/sound.wav

is this enough to post to launchpad?

Carl K